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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: russell_-at-_flora.ottawa.on.ca (Russell McOrmond)
Date: 4 Apr 1999 16:50:36 -0400
References: <3707A3FB.60674F8E@vsnl.com>
On Sun, 4 Apr 1999, Lakshmi Anand K. wrote:
> Hi *,
> This would have been asked already. If some FAQ answering it exists,
> please point me to it, so that I can answer better.
It's always a good discussion to keep in the back of peoples minds to be
reminded about what makes Linux better than other systems, and why much of
what is perceived as 'Microsoft bashing' is actually valid complaints
about an invalid software development model (Closed source proprietary
computing).
> An FUD against Linux runs thus:
>
> The Linux os is dependent on Linus & co. What if Linus & co stop
> development in future? There is no perpetual succession.
> What if they split up? You have no guarantee.
Could someone explain to me what the phrase 'split up' means in a Free
Software context? Who is Linus & co? It sounds like this is discussing a
bunch of buddies when in reality some of the personalities cannot stand
each other and do not work well together. What does 'succession' mean in
a distributed computing and development model?
Language is part of the problem here. I suspect I may have been
working in the Free Software model for too long to even understand the
language that is being used in the above as none of it has any meaning in
the Free Software world.
To get past all of this you need to explain the nature of Free Software
to them, and much of this is at http://www.fsf.org/ and elsewhere on the
net. Choose your audience and you'll likely find a specific paper written
by someone focused at that audience.
It also helps to remind people that Linus is himself only involved in a
small part of a specific kernel called Linux which is itself an extremely
small part of a larger project that is more appropriately referenced as
GNU/Linux. If people would start using this phrase then it would be
easier to market things with people realizing that "Linus & Co" are just
players on a very huge stage. Not to devalue the work of any one
individual within the Free Software community, but this is truly a team
effort and the chances of the entire team disbanding being next to
impossible (Nuclear holocost destroying all computing resources? Comparing
to Microsoft in this case is a tad redundant ;-)
On the other hand, Microsoft (As an example of a proprietary vendor -
nothing special about them) has no staying power and is centrally owned.
A good comparison is the old idea from IBM that there would never be a
world market for more than 5 or so computers (Mainframes) with the reality
of the distributed network of hundreds of millions of computer today.
The centralized and closed model does not last for long and is always
eventually replaced by distributed systems.
> { well, the same is true of Microsoft. What can you do if they ditch NT?
> .. (but this FUD is NOT 'You have nobody to sue'.) }
It's not a matter of the 'same is true of Microsoft' in that it is not
true of Linux or any other Free Software, while it is true of Microsoft or
any Proprietary Software. People have valid fears of proprietary software
companies splitting up or going under, which is one of the problems that
Free Software is a long-term solution for. There have been attempts to
slow this migration process down through source escrow and other such
schemes, but nothing will beat out Open Source/Free Software for longterm
viability.
As to the "nobody to sue" silliness: Have one of these people read
their end-user license for their proprietary product and they will notice
that they can't really sue anyone now. If you could sue for defective
workmanship there would be millions of people suing Microsoft for the
defects in MS Office that allowed the Melissa WORD Macro virus to exist.
With Free Software you get what you pay for, and if you want to pay
someone for a warranty on software support then you can get it. On the
other hand with most proprietary software you just 'pay for' and never
really 'get'.
And what do you mean by 'if they ditch NT'? The History of all
proprietary vendors, especially Microsoft, has been that support for older
products disappears when the new comes out. Ever try to get support for
Windows for Workgroups since Windows 95 came out? Have you tried to even
purchase Windows95 or WfW now that Windows 98 is out?
On the other hand, I still support some old Slackware systems running as
file-servers (I go around replacing old Novel servers with upgrades to
Linux), upgrading components as necessary for increased functionality
needed by the client. I have servers I support that have install files in
/etc such as:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1941 Sep 17 1994 DIR_COLORS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 26 Jun 14 1996 HOSTNAME
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4 Feb 23 1993 NETWORKING
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19776 Sep 21 1998 XF86Config
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 360 Mar 31 00:03 aliases
Note: this is the top few lines from an 'ls -l /etc' on the live box that
I am typing on at the moment. The hardware is quite different when some
of those files were installed, but those first installed files are still
here. The file 'NETWORKING' essentially says 'YES' and was created when I
first installed and said 'Yes, I want to install networking'. This file
was previously used by some scripts to determine if networking should be
enabled or not.
Good luck trying to get support on an OS installation with dates like
this from a company like Microsoft! Heck, good luck being able to keep a
box running with the same OS long enough to have a computer with dates
like that on it: many of the clients I have that still have Windows boxes
end up re-installing their entire systems every couple of months. (Open
the windows, close the windows, tear down the house, build a new
house,...blah,blah,blah...)
---
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://russell.flora.org/work/>
FLORA: Planned Upgrades/outages! http://www.flora.org/flora.announce/90
Melissa Virus - the real story! http://www.flora.org/flora.comnet-www/1453
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